Tag: bloon

BARCELONA, Spain (zero2infinity PR) — After many years of friendship, an Agreement was formalized between Michael López-Alegría and zero2infinity. The former NASA astronaut will advise the company in both technical and business matters.

Michael López-Alegría is a Spanish-American astronaut who flew to space four times and performed ten spacewalks. After retiring from NASA in 2012, he became President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation in Washington, DC. His expertise in both American and Russian space programs will be an important asset in establishing human space travel in Europe. López-Alegría will put his years of experience and extensive knowledge in the field of commercial spaceflight to the service of zero2infinity, supporting its objectives and dreams of sustainable, near-space access for scientists, passengers and payloads.

One of the main objectives of zero2infinity’s project “bloon”, a manned high-altitude balloon, is to give the overview effect to the people flying it. During a Google hangout organized by zero2infinity on March 5th, 2012, about this emotional shift in perspective that is known as the “overview effect,” Lopez-Alegria said: “The Earth is covered by the atmosphere, which is analogous to the skin of an apple, that is pretty thin. Even in a balloon flight, you’d be outside this boundary just about; you’d be able to perceive what that’s like, and that just in itself, with the curvature and the blackness of the sky, will give a very strong sense of the bigger picture”.

BARCELONA, Spain (zero2infinity PR) — The Spanish company zero2infinity, based in Barcelona, known for its extensive Near-Space ballooning experience, announced it’s been working to expand its capabilities to include a nanosatellite launch vehicle, named bloostar, to offer reliable, dedicated, launch on demand for 21st century small satellites.

zero2infinity has been operating high-altitude balloons since 2009. Flying technical, scientific and commercial payloads to over 30km altitude is its current operational activity. Using balloons as a first-stage for a nanosatellite launcher is the logical and necessary next step to address this booming and underserved market.

A Bloon pressure suit created by Final Frontier Design (Credit: zero2infinity)

BARCELONA, Spain (zero2infinity PR) — The high-altitude balloon company zero2infinity, based in Barcelona, has received its first Space suit, designed by American company Final Frontier Design. This brings the company one step closer to crewed test flights, which should start later this year.

BARCELONA, Spain (zero2infinity PR) — On Friday, 6 September 2013, zero2infinity performed a test flight of microbloon 3.0 from the airport of Cordoba, Spain. microbloon 3.0 is an inflatable pod manufactured by Thin Red Line Aerospace and ascended smoothly up to 27km.

León, Spain, November 12, 2012 (zero2infinity PR) —Barcelona-based company zero2infinity has successfully launched its newest prototype, the microbloon 2.0, to the edge of Space at almost 32km in altitude, that is, above 99% of the mass of the atmosphere.

It was a major step in zero2finfinity’s mission to bring Space closer to society. Founder José Mariano López-Urdiales said: “It’s very exciting to be this close to flying people on bloon. The environmental conditions inside the pod remained comfortable at all times. The efficiency of the aviation safety agencies (AENA, AESA), local governments and especially the Spanish Air Force was key for this success. When everyone works together, anything can be achieved in Spain.”

NEW YORK (zero2infinity PR) — zero2infinity is now one step closer to manned flight: an agreement was just signed with Final Frontier Design to buy a pressurized space suits.

zero2infinity just entered into an agreement with Final Frontier Design and became one of the first in line to buy a pressurized space suits. The aim of Ted Southern and Nikolay Moiseev, the associates behind FFD, is to develop the next generation of space suits for the new commercial space industry. They have already made pressurized astronaut gloves and two complete suit prototypes and are now seking NASA flight certification; they will start delivering suits in January 2013.

Once pressurized space suits are delivered, zero2infinity will evaluate them in some tests for the use in the first manned test flight in 2013. We hope that this is the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration with Final Frontier Design.

Barcelona, Spain – June 1, 2012 (zero2infinity PR) — Barcelona-based company zero2infinity has proceeded to the next level in its test plan. The wind conditions were particularly harsh and the test had to be terminated prematurely. However this first test flight of the microbloon program is a significant step and brings the newspace company forward in its quest to develop safe and rapidly reusable near-space launch capabilities.

An interesting concept for high-altitude flight from a Barcelona company called zero2infinity. The website ncludes the following description:

Bloon’s near-spaceship will calmly soar through our atmosphere pulled by a balloon in a clean and safe way to an altitude of 36 km. Meanwhile, the four shirtsleeves travelers on board the pod will dispose of about 3 hours to discover the amazing beauty and fragility of the Earth. There’s no need to rush. Space travel is a journey of discovering and enlightenment. Near-space travelers can have dinner, sip their favorite drink or simply relax in the warm cabin’s environment with the only worry of not missing any detail of our great world and knowing that the trip not only did no harm, but helped protect her.